Did The Ancient Greeks Make A Computer?

An Article | 1977 | Lionel Casson

[BlueNgold]

I see you've got the

paragraph and
line breaks down ...

Now all you need is an occasional Bold or italic, or if you're feeling really fancy go for the Bold Italics .. Next week ... Colors, font changes, and graphics ... lol

[Holly_P]

...Thanks for the very interesting link. I considered pasting it here but don't want to take up a lot of space. It is well worth reading though.

[fqued]

You do know why it was on the bottom of sea, don't you?
that was the ancient cure for viruses.

Besides the MuSigma people and the pomegranate people were always warring over which had the better and faster computer

Seriously, this was rather more like a mechanical calculator than a computer.

[fqued]

Holly,

Okay, now that you've been razzed for a while,
check out:

Reference HTML Cheatsheet:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/757944/posts?page=1,50

Secondly: that (.) was really a tagline that you inadvertently created. Note after a posters screenname there often appears some witty or deep comment in parentheses. You too can do that by filling in the tag line space after printing a reply. It's right there on the posting page after the "your reply" section.

[Holly_P]

From the link in message #5 and from your reply, I can't seem to get it as to whether the Greek mechanism and the much later "Islamic calendar" Were independant inventions.
It would seem so to me since the Islamic versions were "less sophisticated" (from the link in message #5)Were it "borrowed" from the Greeks it would follow that it would be more sophisticated, improvements having been made with the passage of time.

[farmfriend]

Gods, Graves, Glyphs
List for articles regarding early civilizations , life of all forms, - dinosaurs - etc.

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[Petronski]

[Holly_P]

That's what my Grampa is getting me for Christmas. I don't think he knows it yet though.

[Holly_P]

Yes, please do add me to your list. Thank you.

[farmfriend]

Consider yourself added. If you ever change your mind, just let me know.

[Wilhelm Tell]

...My first effort. I thought it was fascinating. probably dull for everyone else especially with no paragraph breaks.

I thought it was fascinating. To me it is plausible that a lot of things have been invented more than once, so why not an ancient Greek navigational device? Our history has been pretty chaotic and violent -- there is probably a lot of knowledge that has been discovered and lost and rediscovered centuries later. If any ancient person could have had an understanding of the motion of the planets approaching that of Copernicus, it would have to have been some ancient Greek. The ancient people did seem to be able to navigate better than one might think -- maybe they knew more than we give them credit for.

[Oatka]

What none of these articles discussed is the craftsmanship that went into this device.

By that I mean, for instance, HOW were the teeth cut? To index a device so that each tooth was identically cut implies a high degree of manufacturing sophistication. Filing each tooth by hand, no matter how carefully done, would have had enough variation to end up binding the device at the first turn.

Now times that by 30 gears of varying sizes and the marvel becomes more apparent. Whether the device was a "computer" or a calculator, it seems to me the hidden wonder is where did the smarts and technology come from to make the equipment to make this tool?

I'm even allowing here that the gear teeth were shaped like shark's teeth and not the squared off ones we are used to today. It they have the latter, which are far harder to fabricate, we have a really MAJOR puzzle on our hands.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

Was their blue screen of death that nice sort of Royal greek blue?

[Petronski]

LOL That was my very first computer. It came with 16k RAM and a cassette storage drive. I was 15 years old. I figure that's primitive enough to provide a fair comparison to this ancient Greek computer.

;O)

[blam]

"To me it is plausible that a lot of things have been invented more than once, so why not an ancient Greek navigational device?"

Imagine what we could have learned if the library at Alexanderia hadn't burned down.

[MattAMiller]

Did The Ancient Greeks Make A Computer?

And somewhere someone in HR wants to know why they can't get the latest version of Office to run on it.

[Future Useless Eater]

>>Windows 100 B.C.?

ROTFLMAO

[Ff--150]

Interesting--thanx for ping!

[longtermmemmory]

so now the UFO conspiracy theorists will claim computers were first given to the ancient Greeks.

(of course the ancient Greek did design the first robot)

[GodBlessRonaldReagan]

Spark Plugs of the Gods.